The Cult of Science
Pics below from a book on religion with a list of warning signs. I can't help but notice how many of these "warning signs your religion is a cult" apply more to science than any standard religion. I'm not saying science is a cult. I'm just saying it fits this definition of a cult very well.
Taboo Topics: Eugenics, human cloning, stem cells, administrative costs, education, rigor, standards, publications, peer review procedures, genetic engineering
Secrets: We know cancer can't actually be cured, what percentage of revenue goes towards actual research, the weight of our standards has fluctuated, we don't know much at all, our answers are guesses (and we're prepared to correct them, but we will present them as fact until then, not guesses)
Spiritual Clones: You've reached the higher level so now you wear this ceremonial robe... err... lab coat/glasses/gloves/leather elbowed jacket, everyone has to conform to this belief structure, these are the laws of the universe and no matter how often our understanding and definitions of them change we got it right this and you must use them, everyone take these prerequisites then these courses and get yourself published in these magazines
Groupthink: There is no other explanation than science. If anything happened, it was because of science. If we can't explain it, we will guess and then research it and find how science caused it, changing our guess as we go.
The Elect: There is no room for superstitious nonsense in science. "If I can't measure it, it doesn't exist!" - people who actually know very little about science
No Graduates: Well, plenty of graduate students. Heh... But you never leave the scientific community because you've finished the dogma. You teach or you write or your research science and you just keep doing that until you retire from everything or you die.
Assembly Lines: All the same classwork, all the same tests, all the same standards, all the same white coats
Loyalty Tests: Well, unpaid internships that go on for years aside, I think the fact that science actually literally tests loyalty as a quantity qualifies it here. (Milgram Experiment, famously)
Duplicity: You can't have a study without duplicity. One of those cancer patients is going to get saline instead of medicine.
Unifocal Understanding: from the text "a single world-view is used to explain anything and everything; alternate explanations are verboten. For example, if you have diarrhea it's 'Guru's Grace.' If it stops, it's also Guru's Grace. And if you get constipated, it is still Guru's Grace." That's just silly. Guru's Grace! Science explains all of tha... oh wait...
Humorlessness: Can't say science doesn't have a sense of humor. It certainly has some sacred cows that you aren't allowed to make fun of, but on the whole scientists are fun people.
Taboo Topics: Eugenics, human cloning, stem cells, administrative costs, education, rigor, standards, publications, peer review procedures, genetic engineering
Secrets: We know cancer can't actually be cured, what percentage of revenue goes towards actual research, the weight of our standards has fluctuated, we don't know much at all, our answers are guesses (and we're prepared to correct them, but we will present them as fact until then, not guesses)
Spiritual Clones: You've reached the higher level so now you wear this ceremonial robe... err... lab coat/glasses/gloves/leather elbowed jacket, everyone has to conform to this belief structure, these are the laws of the universe and no matter how often our understanding and definitions of them change we got it right this and you must use them, everyone take these prerequisites then these courses and get yourself published in these magazines
Groupthink: There is no other explanation than science. If anything happened, it was because of science. If we can't explain it, we will guess and then research it and find how science caused it, changing our guess as we go.
The Elect: There is no room for superstitious nonsense in science. "If I can't measure it, it doesn't exist!" - people who actually know very little about science
No Graduates: Well, plenty of graduate students. Heh... But you never leave the scientific community because you've finished the dogma. You teach or you write or your research science and you just keep doing that until you retire from everything or you die.
Assembly Lines: All the same classwork, all the same tests, all the same standards, all the same white coats
Loyalty Tests: Well, unpaid internships that go on for years aside, I think the fact that science actually literally tests loyalty as a quantity qualifies it here. (Milgram Experiment, famously)
Duplicity: You can't have a study without duplicity. One of those cancer patients is going to get saline instead of medicine.
Unifocal Understanding: from the text "a single world-view is used to explain anything and everything; alternate explanations are verboten. For example, if you have diarrhea it's 'Guru's Grace.' If it stops, it's also Guru's Grace. And if you get constipated, it is still Guru's Grace." That's just silly. Guru's Grace! Science explains all of tha... oh wait...
Humorlessness: Can't say science doesn't have a sense of humor. It certainly has some sacred cows that you aren't allowed to make fun of, but on the whole scientists are fun people.
Book Burning Party!
Is it weird that I can throw out books? It's weird, isn't it? Most people that seem me do it gasp in horror. When I ask them about it, they really can't justify it. It just FEELS bad. Nazis burned them. Books are sacred. Knowledge is power. Etc.
Harper Publishing and Amazon are fighting right now over something like this. Harper summed up both of their positions while trying to just sum up Amazons.
They said the problem is that Amazon views books as just another commodity. So they were saying that their position are that books are not just another commodity. They're special.
Ok, my thoughts? And if you are one of the 4 people who read this blog, you must (for some reason) want to know my thoughts. You certainly aren't reading for my sake because you (except my wife) haven't made it clear who you are or that you're reading. The numbers could even been fuzzy numbers from Google and not real.
Anyway, my thoughts? Books are just another commodity.
Once upon a time, books WERE sacred. Certainly when books had to be transcribed by hand by monks and a library was a status symbol as much as a repository of information. Books were still sacred when we used printing presses and whatever came after printing presses all the way up until there were a handful of publishing houses and some vanity press, books were still pretty sacred. There was lots of books, but there was not an overabundance of them. Libraries called for donations because there weren't enough. Having books in your house meant that you spent a chunk of money and time building a library. It was a status symbol of intellectualism instead of wealth though. You'd wade through used bookstores to find some forgotten tome and while it was not current, its information was still relevant.
Then things got... fast.
No one is going to say that The Complete Dummies Guide to Windows 3.1 is sacred. But they still won't toss it.
No one is going to say that a 2013 first draft Musings of My Heart filled with typos by Joey Artschool printed with a print-on-demand service is sacred. But they still won't toss it.
No one is going to say that their high school Economics textbook is sacred. But yada yada.
I got over this a long time ago.
3,500 books are published every day in America. Not printed. Published. And that doesn't include all the e-books, which are even easier to publish.
Where do you THINK they all are if no one is throwing them away? They're hidden away around the country, passed around until they're so out of date they get to someone who tosses them.
I say bring back book burnings!
lol... That's how I want to be quoted... geez...
Ok, I've established that I think it's ok to toss books, but what happens to them? They end up in the garbage pile. They're biodegradable for the most part and don't last long, relative to things like plastic (which might be part of the cover). Well, if you take away the mystique protecting books from the trash, you are left with a stack of paper. Throwing out the cover and recycling the paper is a good way to go.
But imagine, for a second, a book burning party. A bonfire party where you bring books that you would throw out. They're reams of paper so they burn great and cleanly (tossing the cover if it has plastic). I don't think the binding glue is particularly bad, but I can't swear to that. It's all very taboo, so that's fun. It's all very Nazi, which is not so fun. But imagine what will ACTUALLY happen at one of these before the fire starts.
You've brought your books and you met Jim there, who has his books to burn. Great conversation start. Everyone's a little embarrassed they own something like How To Train Your Millipede. They don't even know how they got it.
You: "Yeah, someone got me this book on whittling. Like when am I ever going to whittle?"
Jim: "Whittling? I've always wanted to whittle. Can I trade you Kevin Costner's autobiography for it?"
So you trade your book on whittling that you were going to burn to someone who is going to save it from the fire and actually give it a home. You take Kevin Costner's autobiography because it doesn't matter what it was. All burns the same. But you are now walking around with a new book in your hands. That old mystique creeps back into your head. Knowledge is power. Books are sacred. You don't know that this one isn't sacred because you haven't looked at it. You open it up and glance over it for a second.
So now from two books that were going to be thrown out or burned, you've got one that's going to be read and one that's been given a chance to be read.
What ultimately ends up in the fire are serious wastes of paper. And yet, someone might still spot Chicken Soup for the Butt and snatch it out of the pile.
I'm telling you. Book burning parties should be a thing. It'd be like a book swap with a ticking clock and the only books that would be burned are books that should really be disposed of anyway.
Harper Publishing and Amazon are fighting right now over something like this. Harper summed up both of their positions while trying to just sum up Amazons.
They said the problem is that Amazon views books as just another commodity. So they were saying that their position are that books are not just another commodity. They're special.
Ok, my thoughts? And if you are one of the 4 people who read this blog, you must (for some reason) want to know my thoughts. You certainly aren't reading for my sake because you (except my wife) haven't made it clear who you are or that you're reading. The numbers could even been fuzzy numbers from Google and not real.
Anyway, my thoughts? Books are just another commodity.
Once upon a time, books WERE sacred. Certainly when books had to be transcribed by hand by monks and a library was a status symbol as much as a repository of information. Books were still sacred when we used printing presses and whatever came after printing presses all the way up until there were a handful of publishing houses and some vanity press, books were still pretty sacred. There was lots of books, but there was not an overabundance of them. Libraries called for donations because there weren't enough. Having books in your house meant that you spent a chunk of money and time building a library. It was a status symbol of intellectualism instead of wealth though. You'd wade through used bookstores to find some forgotten tome and while it was not current, its information was still relevant.
Then things got... fast.
No one is going to say that The Complete Dummies Guide to Windows 3.1 is sacred. But they still won't toss it.
No one is going to say that a 2013 first draft Musings of My Heart filled with typos by Joey Artschool printed with a print-on-demand service is sacred. But they still won't toss it.
No one is going to say that their high school Economics textbook is sacred. But yada yada.
I got over this a long time ago.
3,500 books are published every day in America. Not printed. Published. And that doesn't include all the e-books, which are even easier to publish.
Where do you THINK they all are if no one is throwing them away? They're hidden away around the country, passed around until they're so out of date they get to someone who tosses them.
I say bring back book burnings!
lol... That's how I want to be quoted... geez...
Ok, I've established that I think it's ok to toss books, but what happens to them? They end up in the garbage pile. They're biodegradable for the most part and don't last long, relative to things like plastic (which might be part of the cover). Well, if you take away the mystique protecting books from the trash, you are left with a stack of paper. Throwing out the cover and recycling the paper is a good way to go.
But imagine, for a second, a book burning party. A bonfire party where you bring books that you would throw out. They're reams of paper so they burn great and cleanly (tossing the cover if it has plastic). I don't think the binding glue is particularly bad, but I can't swear to that. It's all very taboo, so that's fun. It's all very Nazi, which is not so fun. But imagine what will ACTUALLY happen at one of these before the fire starts.
You've brought your books and you met Jim there, who has his books to burn. Great conversation start. Everyone's a little embarrassed they own something like How To Train Your Millipede. They don't even know how they got it.
You: "Yeah, someone got me this book on whittling. Like when am I ever going to whittle?"
Jim: "Whittling? I've always wanted to whittle. Can I trade you Kevin Costner's autobiography for it?"
So you trade your book on whittling that you were going to burn to someone who is going to save it from the fire and actually give it a home. You take Kevin Costner's autobiography because it doesn't matter what it was. All burns the same. But you are now walking around with a new book in your hands. That old mystique creeps back into your head. Knowledge is power. Books are sacred. You don't know that this one isn't sacred because you haven't looked at it. You open it up and glance over it for a second.
So now from two books that were going to be thrown out or burned, you've got one that's going to be read and one that's been given a chance to be read.
What ultimately ends up in the fire are serious wastes of paper. And yet, someone might still spot Chicken Soup for the Butt and snatch it out of the pile.
I'm telling you. Book burning parties should be a thing. It'd be like a book swap with a ticking clock and the only books that would be burned are books that should really be disposed of anyway.
Image-attachment
I was reading about image-attachments in Buddhism where we don't perceive our true self because of these ideas of who we are/were/should be/etc. How we should just accept who we are. But I don't like that. The idea is that there's no need for improvement because any flaw is imaginary. I can get behind the idea that when I look at others they are flawless, but I always will believe that I can be better. I want to move in a direction. Simply being is unadventurous and adventures make me happy. Buddhism would say that the adventures are an imaginary happiness and I only have unhappiness to overcome because of the attachments in my life. I'm not sure about that.
Anyway, I thought I would define the image-attachment of who I should be in order to be able to stand back and look at it and see if I'm wrong to keep this attachment.
Image-attachment of who I should be
Good posture
Freshly cut hair
No unibrow
Clear skin
Freshly shaved
No jowls
Muscular left shoulder without noticeable disability
More tattoos
Flat stomach
Smooth feet
No light sensitivity
Kinder speaking
Controlled emotions
Modest
Few belongings
Comfortable clothes
Ride motorcycle more
More time for adventures
Lots of teaching certifications
Actively expanding business
Taking others’ territories
Loved by employees
Large circle of close friends
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